The expansion of illegal Israeli settlements and outposts in the West Bank, alongside the ongoing horror of life in Gaza, makes the need for a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine more urgent and necessary than ever. International dithering and procrastination must stop to preserve any chance of sustainable peace.

This was our conclusion after visiting the West Bank as part of a wider Middle East trip that included meetings with Palestinian, Israeli, Lebanese, and Jordanian leaders. 

It is clear to us that the Government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies threaten to make Palestine disappear politically, culturally, economically, and physically. 

Traveling through the West Bank, we had a visceral sense of a land and people under deepening occupation. Everyday life is impeded at every turn. Settler violence is an integral part of this strategy, designed to intimidate and terrorize Palestinians off their land. Far from being the work of a small number of “juvenile delinquents” as he claims, it is a state-backed campaign undertaken with the active support of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). 

We saw at first-hand how state-backed settlement expansion operates. First, hillside outposts are established by a handful of settlers. Even though these are illegal under Israel’s own laws, we heard directly how they are systematically and swiftly protected by the IDF despite Israeli authorities from time to time condemning settler violence. Connections to water and electricity supplies typically follow, as do roads reserved for Israelis only. 

The result is the physical and administrative carve-up of the West Bank. Palestinian communities are distanced from each other, their land, and the possibility of a future Palestinian state. 

Among the blatant evidence of what is happening is the decades-old E1 settlement plan for Palestinian territory east of Jerusalem. On Aug. 18, the Israeli Housing Ministry issued a tender for over 1,200 units, setting off a process which,  if completed, would sever East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank and thereby disrupt the territorial contiguity of a Palestinian state.

E1 has long been a red line even for Israel's staunchest allies. Previous Israeli governments, including those led by Prime Minister Netanyahu, have stopped short of actually proceeding, in part due to international pressure. Now that commercial tenders are being issued and construction contracts potentially signed, any companies and banks tempted to get involved would be breaching international law and have been warned to that effect by a number of Western countries and the European Commission.

Israel’s friends and allies must demand E1’s cancellation—not just postponement or freezing, but definitively ruling it out as a threat to the two-state solution which is necessary for both Israel and Palestine to have peace and security. 

Many Israelis recognize this threat and oppose the growing extremism and intolerance in their politics and society at large. For instance, we met with President Isaac Herzog on our visit, who condemned settler violence. We also acknowledge the deep trauma Israel’s people suffered after the Hamas terror attacks of October 7, which included the detention of hostages contrary to all international law. 

We take inspiration from the brave Israeli and Palestinian civil society activists we met. They remain determined to combat impunity for abuses and injustice, and to strive for a future for both peoples based on equality and respect for international law.

Yet this vision is far from the reality we saw on our visit. We saw how ongoing settlement of the West Bank and the sustained violence against and displacement of Palestinians threatens ethnic cleansing and annexation. Combined with the occupation of Gaza, including renewed calls by Israeli ministers for new settlements in the Strip, we are convinced that what is underway is the conquest and erasure of one state by another. 

This is the logic of some of the bloodiest wars of previous centuries. It is what Russia is seeking to do in its illegal war of aggression against Ukraine. But it cannot be an acceptable way for a country which calls itself a democracy to behave in the 21st century. 

Our visit ended in Brussels, where we met with representatives of the European Commission and EU member states. The EU was founded as a values-based organization to promote peaceful cooperation between nations. Given its significant trade relations with Israel, it could play a decisive role now in exerting pressure on Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government.

Yet what is lacking is the political will to take even basic steps. In line with international law, the EU considers Israeli settlements to be illegal, yet EU members continue to trade with Israel. Suspending preferential trade under the EU-Israel Association Agreement is another overdue step due to Israel’s failure to comply with human rights requirements, as already called for by the European Commission. Nor has the EU collectively sanctioned extremist ministers Smotrich and Ben Gvir. 

There is still time to change course before it is too late, but only just.  

When Tiangong Ultra unofficially smashed Usain Bolt’s 100m world record in Beijing, China, unballetically flailing past the finish line in 8.86 seconds, he did not flash an Olympian grin down the camera lens. In fact, he has no face. He is a headless robot.

Ultra, the work of the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, was competing in the penultimate day of the unapologetically dystopian World Humanoid Robot Games, which has been hosting 666 teams at China’s National Speed Skating Oval. At this event, more than 2,000 robots are put to the test in track and field events (like long jump and an obstacle course); sports (like table tennis and soccer); and “scenarios” (like bricklaying and firefighting). 

The event produced several eye-catching moments, including when humanoids beat human records at the high jump and the 400m. Just a few days before Ultra’s race, Lightning, a robot developed by phone company Honor, ran the 100m in 9.39 seconds, again thundering home quicker than Bolt.

But these tumbling records will likely be, in the pop cultural consciousness, eclipsed by something far more entertaining: tumbling robots. Along with the epic wins, there have been some seriously old-school, epic fails. One humanoid at the weightlifting event lost its balance with a weedy 15kg barbell, started jerking and slammed into the judges’ table, its helpless arms aloft, as if to say, “Why me?” Most memorably, a robot ended his dash by careering into a safety mat, Tom and Jerry style, before cartoonishly arching backward and setting on fire. Each spark was like a beautiful firework.

These slapstick scenes are deliciously satisfying. It’s deeply reassuring to watch robots fizzle out into smithereens. I myself have fond memories of watching the fire-hazard creations on Robot Wars in the U.K. (the successor to BattleBots in the U.S.) get shredded into shrapnel. This time, it’s a reassuring reminder that we can beat robot replicants at our own games. 

This robot schadenfreude is fuelled by a fear of the future. Pointing out their flaws makes humanity’s finish line feel further away, even if that’s a highly unintelligent thing to think.

In many ways, this feeling can be filed next to our twisted delight in belittling generative AI. ChatGPT’s past inability to spell “strawberry” has made it an object of ridicule online. Calling AI-generated content “slop” has become a knee-jerk reaction to artificial intelligence’s catastrophic metastasisation in the creative industries. 

And our collective giddiness about technical mishaps is not reserved just for AI. For instance, we love to watch the armored glass windows of the Tesla Cybertruck break. One possible reason: it shatters the illusion that the future is here and already decided. Robots surely can’t replace us if we haven’t figured out car windows yet. This feeling is magnified when they are humanoids—ersatz versions of ourselves. 

Seen through a sports lens, it mirrors how I felt with the Enhanced Games. The painfully brotastic event held in Las Vegas in May allowed athletes to take performance-enhancing drugs or wear banned gear. With social media instilling a chronic fatigue for actual human achievement, technophiles are moving the goalposts; if being pumped full of steroids or titanium plates makes you more likely to beat a world record, it’s worth it. Once again though, disappointment was on show. Just a single best-ever-time, in the men’s 50m freestyle, was (unofficially) recorded by Kristian Gkolovmeev; he wore an outlawed polyurethane skinsuit. Otherwise, the non-artificially-enhanced athletes dominated the competition.

My concern: when it comes to humanoids, at least, our schadenfreude is set to be a short-lived pastime. While advanced robots are still relatively primitive, their improvement is staggering. To put it into perspective, at last year’s World Humanoid Robot Games, Ultra won the 100 meters in 21.50 seconds, much closer to Bolt’s 200m record than his 100m time. They’re only getting stronger and faster. Dunking on “clankers,” a derogatory term for clumsy robots (like this one dancing to Billie Jean), may be the most classically human response: laughing off the impending doom. 

Many futurists predict that in the near future, our factories and farms and battlefields and back gardens will be filled with humanoid helpers. In 2024, Elon Musk said that by 2040 there will probably be more humanoid robots than people. And according to research by Morgan Stanley over 1 billion humanoids may be in use by 2050 and the market could be worth $5 trillion.

Spectators from afar like me, viewing the drama on our phones, will continue to watch with a sort of futuristic gallows humour. ​​Laughing at misfortune, however spiteful it may be, leads to social bonding—in this case, as an entire species, against robots—that humans desperately need right now.

Every time a clanker goes crash, bang, wallop, and kaput, it’s a visceral reminder that we still matter. And unlike them, when faced with their destruction, I’m able to smile.